Staff Photo by Dan Henry
Wendell Norton, a Meth Incident Response Specialist with the Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force, explains his role in aiding Meth cleanup while standing by his vehicle at the Hamilton County Sheriff's Annex on Friday.

Johnny Burch has been a farmer, hazardous materials truck driver and sheriff's deputy.

All three jobs prepared the 73-year-old man to respond anytime day or night when police need help with handling methamphetamine labs.

Mr. Burch and 14 other drivers across the state make up an overlapping response network for the Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force.

Each driver is responsible for at least 11 counties and is on call to drive the $50,000 modified full-sized pickup trucks down the roads of Tennessee -- blue lights flashing, if necessary.

"When I started, you could throw a rock anywhere and hit a lab," Mr. Burch said of meth labs in the state in 2001.

For a while he was a one-man show, he said, and he remembers working nine labs in 24 hours.

But as the task force grew and gained success with new laws passed and increased funding, more drivers were added.

"That's all in a day's work. Sometimes it's booming like that, and some days it's a little slow," said Billy Cook, east regional task force director. "I've always said from the start that the truck drivers, they're the backbone of the meth task force."

Wendell Norton spent 32 years delivering packages for United Parcel Service, and he has worked as a volunteer firefighter.

He said he never expected to drive a meth truck for police, but after retiring, he heard the meth task force wanted to put a truck in the Coffee County area. Now for the last six years the 61-year-old has driven a meth response truck.

On Thursday night he worked three labs in the Grundy County area. On Friday afternoon he got a call to head west to Bedford County.

The drivers don't clean the labs, but they assist police who call a contracted hazardous materials company to clean the site.

Mr. Norton brings in a tent, generator, mobile office for report filing, extra protective gear and cabinets full of other equipment.

Mr. Cook said the task force looks for older drivers who have related experience either with law enforcement or hazardous materials and have time on their hands.

Mr. Burch and Mr. Norton are both retired, which gives them a flexible schedule and keeps turnover down.

A lab can take four to six hours to process, and the drivers don't leave until the cleaning crews have finished, Mr. Norton said.

The drivers also train police how to use equipment, conduct meth prevention lectures at area schools and pick up pseudoephedrine logs from pharmacies that don't submit them electronically, he said.

The drivers also see a range of techniques, labs and methods that even police might not, Mr. Cook said.

Meth-cooking methods vary in different parts of the state, and some local law enforcement might not be familiar or have not seen a certain method before, Mr. Norton said.